Archaeologies of Motherhood

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeologies of Motherhood" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since Conkey and Spector’s groundbreaking work on feminist archaeology, the field has significantly expanded its scope to encompass gender archaeology, queer archaeology, and archaeology of children, women, and indigeneity. While archaeology of motherhood has been discussed and examined, it has largely remained “in the shadow” of other significant topics. This session aims to understand how mothers have healed the maternal body; what practical (magical) solutions did they use to prevent pregnancies, have safe deliveries, and induce lactation? This session presents papers from various disciplines that will examine topics that vary from wet nurses in Ancient Egypt to grandmothers in Ancient Greece; while also presenting the material culture of mothers and infants from the Eastern Mediterranean to Roman Britain. Two other papers will study devotional therapeutics for (in)fertility and motherhood in Austria, in addition to maternal marginalization and infant mortality in New Zealand.